There’s a common “moral” standard that many like to employ today, especially regarding sexual matters, that goes something like this: “Two consenting adults can do what they please, as long as no one gets hurt.” But of course the sinners who talk like this seem to think that they get to determine if anyone gets hurt. Generally their notions of “no one” are very egocentric. But even there they are often quite wrong.

Today, I marched with many who tried to give a voice to the at least 50 million who didn’t just get hurt by the behavior of certain “consenting adults”—they got killed.

Consider the fact that 85% of abortions are performed on single women. That means that fornication (premarital sex) is the single largest contributing cause to abortion. Many of these couples went into their dalliances insisting that nobody would get hurt. But the babies they aborted would beg to differ. They got hurt and then they got killed.

The claim that no one is getting hurt is a lie.

Add to this a few others who fill out the number of those hurt by sexual immortality:

Those who grow up in single parent homes – Thank God they survived at all—most don’t. But because their “parents” had sex but didn’t even have the commitment or maturity to say “Now that there’s another life involved we’d better grow up, be less focused on our own happiness, and think of someone else.” Some others made a bad choice for one night or for a brief time and to get married would have made little sense. But still, the result is that a child is raised (usually) without his or her father. Thankfully those babies were not killed, but still they are hurt because they deserved a complete home with a mother and father there to love them.

Our Culture, our nation, and the Church – None of these three sectors will be strong if the traditional family is not strong. Fornicators, adulterers, and homosexual offenders all weaken the family, and the family is the basic foundation of everything. If the traditional family is not strong, “Sayonara.” It is very hard to find a culture or a nation that can survive the loss of family structure and loyalty, or the loss of sexual self-control. The “nobody gets hurt” people think they can go on taking the prerogatives of marriage (e.g., sexual intimacy and parenthood) and not “harm” the culture. They are wrong, and both history and common sense, as well as current statistics, show that we are all harmed, exceedingly, by the “as long as nobody gets hurt” crowd. The number of abortions has skyrocketed as has the number of teenage pregnancies and single mothers, while the number of marriages has plummeted. This is not healthy for any culture or for any child who has to be raised in such a “culture.”

The “nobody gets hurt” people themselves – After enough of their antics, they often have sexually transmitted diseases, “unwanted” pregnancies, broken hearts, and quite frequently end up feeling used and discarded. They go in saying no one is getting hurt. They come out hurt, bitter, diseased, pregnant, post-abortive (most tragically of all), alone, and usually unfulfilled. And did I mention alone? Alone, very alone in terms of support, but bearing many burdens.

So, at the end of the day, those who say “no one gets hurt” cannot truthfully say that, nor can they give any assurance that no one is getting hurt or will be hurt. How can they possibly know that no one will get hurt? Experience and common sense (which isn’t so common today) say otherwise.

Today, I marched for at least 50 million who got hurt by being killed. Add to that the shattered lives of many of their mothers who felt “driven” to abort because they were either pressured or alone. Any counselor or Catholic Priest will tell you that post-abortion trauma is real. And, sadly, it is deep and does not go away easily. Abortion is an act of violence perpetrated not only on the baby but also on the body of the woman. Few who come away from this act can honestly describe it as anything other than violent and traumatic.

Lots of people are getting hurt! Enough of this “Consenting adults can do what they please as long as no one gets hurt” lie. There is no such thing.

And lest we who believe forget, let us add to this the fact that Jesus got hurt for what we have done. Every sin ever committed added to his pain and suffering on Calvary.

There is a lot of hurt, and anyone who says otherwise is deceived and the truth is not in him.

“Whence we must conclude, that there is no other substantial form in man besides the intellectual soul; and that the soul, as it virtually contains the sensitive and vegetative souls, so does it virtually contain all inferior forms, and itself alone does whatever the imperfect forms do in other things.”–St. Thomas Aquinas

The vegetative aspect of our souls is that which we have in common with plants: nutrition and reproduction.

The most common forms of addiction are drug, alcohol, and sexual addiction, and all of them have to do with the vegetative aspect of the soul, either with respect to consuming something or some kind of sexual activity. Fasting, not spiritual fasting, but the old-fashioned kind, such as giving up a meal, specifically chastens the vegetative aspect of our souls. So, from that consideration, fasting, the old-fashioned kind, is the most obvious, if not the most pleasant, antidote to our addiction driven culture.

Animals are territorial. In alms giving we are giving up a little chunk of territory, whether it be a thing or a place, since we give up our food money last. From that consideration, alms-giving can be seen as chastening the animal or sensitive aspect of our souls.

There is proof that the mother who aborts her baby is more prone to have miscarriages when she later conceives. It could be that without knowing it she just let go of her last chance at motherhood. That’s also quite hurtful. Let’s not forget that abortion also hurts potential grandparents. Thank you Monsignor for marching!

I doubt its PC. I am not sure why and how I get posted at New Advent. Some days I’m on some not. But Kevin has always been very generous about posting my stuff. That said, you can always send him an e-mail requesting a post. His email it at the site (Webmaster).

1. Major point: thank you for pointing out the cruelty inherent in our society’s prevailing sexual ethic! We need to hear this–Catholic and non-Catholic alike. *I* need to hear this, as a reminder in my own temptations. Again, thank you!

2. Minor point: I can’t make your numbers fit here on single-parent families. You claim (a) that most babies conceived out of wedlock are aborted (“Thank God they survived at all–most don’t”) and (b) that 85% of U.S. abortions are performed on unmarried women. Guttmacher reports about 1.2 million abortions per year in the U.S. (The CDC’s numbers are lower. Neither one attempts to count abortions due to abortifacient contraceptives, but I’m not aware of any solid estimates for those.) 85% of 1.2 million is just over a million abortions on single women. So for most babies born out of wedlock to be aborted, there would have to be fewer than a million babies born per year out of wedlock.

The CDC reports 3.9 million births in the U.S. for 2012, of which a little over 40% were out of wedlock. 40% of 3.9 million is between 1.5 and 1.6 million, which is quite substantially more than a million.

No question that these are horrifying numbers no matter how you look at them. But unless you’re using different data from mine, that “Thank God they survived at all–most don’t” claim just isn’t right.

PP itself gives the 85% number. I use their number to avoid the endless debate over the accuracy of the number form them. But I am not sure your numbers are dramatically different are they? TO me they are close if I understand what you are saying.

Well, this only affects that one claim, so from that perspective it’s certainly minor. But in terms of that one claim, I do think the difference between a million and 1.5 million is too big to ignore.

Is it possible that the difference here is that my figuring ignores miscarriages and you included them? That would certainly get the numbers closer to your claim (you did say “survived”, although from the context I understood you to be talking about abortion rather than miscarriage).

As a child of the 60’s, I want to compliment you on how very, very succinctly you have summed up the thinking that came out of that decade. I distinctly remember how that particular phrase was used over and over again to justify bad behavior. Unfortunately I was one who was hurt by this thinking and behavior. But God is awesome and he healed me with His mercy and goodness.